PUBLIC DESIGN WORKSHOP

NYU LAW SCHOOL, SEPTEMBER 13-14,- 2002

Title of Presentation: DESIGNING INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND THEIR SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

I will argue that social consequences of (the use of) information systems are in large part determined by
the relation between technological designs, social structures and interpretive frameworks. For example, whether
a networked computer program infringes on the privacy of its users depends on whether the design of the program
'affords' privacy infringements, whether the system is embedded in a social structure in which some actors are in
a social position in which they have an interest in such privacy infringements and are capable of doing so, and
whether the conceptual structures by which actors interpret their situation and communicate with others affords
them to recognize the possibility of infringing on privacy and to develop strategies to enact or resist such privacy
infringements. I will argue that designers of information systems can design systems to promote or minimize certain
social consequences, but can only be successful in doing so when they can anticipate to some degree the social
structures and interpretive frameworks that will be part of the context of use of the system. Social consequences
can be engineered (preordained) to some extent by designers of information systems, but just as well by those actors
(e.g., managers, legislators, advertisers) who shape the setting in which these systems will be used. I will
discuss the strategic consequences this has for any attempts to promote the public good in the development of
information systems.

Philip Brey (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego)
is associate professor in philosophy and vice chair of the department of philosophy, University of
Twente, the Netherlands. He was educated at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Franklin and Marshall
College, Pennsylvania, and the University of California at San Diego and Berkeley. He was previously employed at
the department of philosophy of Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is co-editor, with Thomas Misa
and Andrew Feenberg, of the forthcoming book Modernity and Technology (MIT Press, 2002) and is a member of the board
of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. His research is on the philosophy of information and communication
technology (ICT), with special attention to computer ethics and to the social and cultural roles of information and
communication technology. His work in computer ethics has concentrated on ethical and political aspects of computer
systems design, on issues of justice and autonomy in relation to ICT,and on ethical aspects of virtuality, mobility
and surveillance. He has also published on the implications of ICT for globalization,for conceptions of place and
ontology, and for the quality of life.